Prepare to shatter your limitations and unlock your untapped potential with the groundbreaking book “Get Better At Anything” by renowned learning expert Scott Young. This transformative guide unveils the secrets to rapidly mastering any skill or subject, empowering you to achieve extraordinary results in record time.
In the following summary, you’ll learn how to optimize the three-part “learning cycle” and get better at anything.
We can get better at anything if we follow a three‐part learning cycle: See it, Do it, Get Feedback. As adults, we can use the latest learning research to enhance each step of the learning cycle so that we can quickly get better at any skill and have zero desire to quit. First…
Keep reading to discover the game-changing strategies that will turbocharge your learning, accelerate your growth, and help you excel at anything you set your mind to.
Table of Contents
Genres
Personal Development, Self-Help, Learning, Productivity, Success, Goal Setting, Skill Acquisition, Peak Performance, Habits, Mindset
In “Get Better At Anything,” Scott Young distills years of research and experimentation into a powerful framework for accelerated learning and skill acquisition. Drawing from cognitive science, expert insights, and real-world examples, Young reveals the key principles and techniques that enable individuals to rapidly improve at any endeavor.
The book explores topics such as deliberate practice, effective goal setting, leveraging feedback, overcoming plateaus, and cultivating the optimal mindset for growth. Young provides practical strategies and exercises to help readers apply these concepts to their own learning journeys.
Whether you want to excel professionally, pick up a new hobby, or simply expand your knowledge, “Get Better At Anything” equips you with the tools to achieve mastery faster than you ever thought possible.
Review
“Get Better At Anything” is a game-changer for anyone seeking to accelerate their learning and achieve extraordinary results. Scott Young’s writing is engaging, insightful, and backed by solid research, making complex concepts accessible and actionable.
The book’s framework is comprehensive yet flexible, allowing readers to tailor the strategies to their unique goals and circumstances. Young’s emphasis on deliberate practice, effective feedback loops, and the power of mindset is particularly impactful.
The real-world examples and case studies bring the concepts to life, demonstrating the transformative potential of these techniques. While some of the strategies may require dedication and effort to implement, the rewards are well worth it.
“Get Better At Anything” is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to unlock their full potential and achieve mastery in any domain. Whether you’re a student, professional, or lifelong learner, this book will provide you with the insights and tools to accelerate your growth and reach new heights of success.
Don’t just watch > copy exactly and extract
Become a better programmer by writing code precisely as it’s written instead of just copying and pasting it into a reference document. As you copy the code, imagine what the programmer thought as they wrote it. Copying will help you think like a skilled practitioner, but to really understand how skilled people think, ask them to solve a problem while thinking aloud. For example, give an experienced programmer a challenging problem and then ask them to discuss their process. Be like a curious toddler and ask plenty of why questions to understand critical decisions, such as, “Why did you choose that logic function?”
Experts often skip fundamental explanations because their actions and decisions seem obvious to them. However, when you give experts problems to solve and ask them to slow down and explain their decisions, you can extract the vital “if‐then rules” that will allow you to perform the skill. The faster you learn the fundamental rules of a skill, the quicker you’ll be able to perform that skill well.
Don’t just do it > build up to it
When you put your knowledge to the test, you must remain in the “difficulty sweet spot” because if you struggle too much at first, you’ll doubt you can learn the skill, and your interest will wane (learning psychologists call this “lowering self‐efficacy”). If you struggle too little, however, you won’t trigger your brain to form new connections that allow you to improve. One way to work within the “difficulty sweet spot” is to start practicing a skill with completion exercises.
- If you’re learning poker or chess, watch a game being played, periodically hit pause, and guess the next move.
- If you’re learning to program, have a friend or AI program remove critical pieces in a section of code and then try to fill in those sections.
For most cognitive skills, you can create flashcards of critical concepts with keywords missing and then test yourself at spaced intervals by reading the flashcards and filling in the blanks. For most physical skills, you can start with a trigger movement and then try to complete the rest of the routine in different scenarios.
Completion exercises are like scaffolds – temporary structures used to help you build your expertise. These “learning scaffolds” are great for building self‐efficacy because they generate frequent small wins that fuel the belief that you can learn a skill. Gradually increasing the difficulty of completion exercises is relatively straightforward – simply take more away. For example, if you deleted one critical step the last time, delete two this time. Your completion exercises should be easy enough to get roughly four out of five completion exercises correct.
“Nothing gives a greater boost to our confidence than seeing ourselves succeed.” – Scott Young
Don’t just get feedback on how you did, but also how you did it
As you advance in a skill, the feedback you get can be misleading.
- You can write a program that runs well with poorly written code.
- You can produce a viral video on YouTube due to algorithmic quirks rather than quality.
Relying solely on outcome feedback can mislead you into thinking your skills, such as your programming and video production skills, are much better than they are. This can lead to enormous frustration when your results steadily decline, and you don’t know why. Therefore, you must:
Seek feedback on your process: Periodically detail your process in a learning journal (for example, how you thought through a complex hand in poker or a position in chess). Then, post sections of your learning journal to Reddit for comments or share sections with a brain trust of experienced people who aren’t afraid to point out flaws in your approach.
Get micro feedback from large models: Utilize large computer models to get immediate feedback on every step of a skill sequence. In chess, chess engine models tell you if you’re winning or losing after every move. In poker, Game Theory Optimal (GTO) models evaluate each decision you make by providing the highest probability decision in each situation. Big data models like these are available for most skills today. And now, with large language models like ChatGPT, you can periodically explain your process to the AI model to get feedback and refine your approach.
“When we’re able to learn from the example of other people, practice extensively ourselves, and get reliable feedback, rapid progress results.” – Scott Young